<<You played that very well, my brother.>>
Glad you think that, Hiromi-chan, Ataru thought to himself as he walked down the street towards the front gate of his family home. Those girls are in even worse shape than you first hinted to me when you awoke in my mind.
If the disembodied spirit currently contained within the magatama hanging off Ataru's left ear could nod, it would. <<You are right about that, Ataru. Like so many whose souls were trapped in these thrice-damned jewels that were passed on over the years, they became fixated on a single dream and goal for their lives. They missed the power they held in court when we lived our first lives. To them, to do anything to regain that power — especially over all the souls of the noble warriors who were left with the pieces when I died and Zhuö Dông took over — is the only thing that gives their life meaning. I hope that with what you've encountered over the last year since you met the noble Lord Nengmek'i and the truly beautiful Lady K'ekhech that the final and true salvation is there for us all.>>
I hope so, too, Hiromi-chan. Ataru then smirked. Unseen by him, several passers-by, on seeing that icy smile, screamed out in horror before they raced off into the distance, wailing a ton of warnings to anyone who would listen to them. Besides, Kâ-chan's tickled pink at the idea of getting herself a daughter.
A delighted laugh. <<Perhaps 'two' daughters, dear 'sister?'>>
You know my reasons, Hiromi.
<<And I applaud them, Ataru. They are truly noble and righteous.>>
By then, he had arrived at the Moroboshi home. Walking in, he slipped off his shoes and put on a pair of slippers. "Tadaima!" he called out.
"Okaeri nasai," the voice of his mother Kinshô echoed from the kitchen. She leaned out to look at him as he moved to sit in the living room. "You said you'd only be an hour with those two girls, Ataru! What on Earth happened?!"
"They all ambushed me there, Kâ-chan!"
Kinshô blinked. "All TEN of them?!"
"Hai, all ten!"
"Oh, my!"
In the living room, Ataru's father Muchi was busy reading his evening paper. The television was one displaying the evening news. As Ataru took a seat, the older man lowered his paper to reveal a face awash with tears of joy. "Ten girls?!" he sobbed before he did a plausible Sôun Tendô wail. "My son is such a stud!"
"Now, Anata, that's enough," Kinshô scolded as she walked into the living room with a tray of food for her son. Placing it on the table so Ataru could eat, she poured herself a cup of sencha. After Ataru called out "Itadakimasu!" and dug in, she relaxed and sipped her tea. "So I assume these other girls are the same as the first two?"
"Very same," Ataru answered before he dug into his gyûdon. "All of them were Hiromi's main attendants at the court in Luòyáng. Running the show on her behalf when she was still Emperor Líng. And the ones who were first targeted when the shit hit the fan, Hiromi died and Zhuö Dông took over the country." A shake of his head. "All that's driven them for eighteen centuries, Kâ-chan. How many reincarnations was it for them? Ten? Twenty? Even more? And all that drove them was the dream to help their Emperor live and make all the tôshi like Ranma's girlfriend Tsueko-chan bow to Hiromi again."
The elder Moroboshis shook their heads. "A sad thing," Muchi noted.
"Hai, that's true," Kinshô breathed out. "Ataru, do you really think your friend Kye-chan can be able to help everyone? Hiromi-chan, the girls, Ranma's girlfriend and all those girls from all those schools? That's almost eight thousand people we're talking about." A deep sigh. "And if you try to play favourites…?"
"That's why we need to find this 'factory' where Kyech and her friends got their new bodies from," Ataru noted. His parents always had problems pronouncing the childhood name of his closest friend from Noukiios; with Japanese phonetics, it would sound very much like "Kyêchu" in lieu of "Kyech." "But finding it and getting it here to Earth means we have to keep in mind Lum's 'admirer' on Phentax Two."
The older people automatically shuddered. When they had learned of the Church of Lum that was based on the second planet of the Phentax star system — which was only fifty light years from Earth! — whatever objections they had to the way Ataru had elected to live his life after learning some painful truths about Lum, not to mention the races living on worlds surrounding Earth, dried up in an instant. "It's being looked into right now, right?" Kinshô wondered.
"T'yekp'it' is checking it out now," Ataru asserted.
Muchi and Kinshô blinked. "Who's she?" the former asked.
Ataru smirked. "The chief of staff to Hep'p'yech, the governor of Kesei."
His parents considered that for a moment, and then exchanged looks as recognition dawned. "Oh, that girl with the black hair and the glasses!" Kinshô said.
Muchi got a goofy look on his face. "Oh, her!" He found himself smiling lecherously. "The one with the very nice and big…!"
CLONK! Mallet on the forehead. "Anata," Kinshô growled. "Shut up!"
"Hai, dear…" Muchi moaned.
Ataru could only shake his head as he continued to eat.
A half-hour later, Ataru walked into his bedroom. It was still pretty much the same as he had it before the Second Tag Race, save for the side-by-side futons that were now rolled up by the linen closet. Noting that, he smiled before he walked over to his work desk. He pressed a button on the top left drawer there; this was a special DNA sensor Lum had installed at his request several months ago so that no one who had access to this room — such as one young Oni boy who was currently safely back on Uru, being smothered by his firefighter mother, making sure he didn't escape her grasp and be threatened by "that terrible arsonist Lum wants to marry!"; not to mention a certain Buddhist monk who, even now, still didn't understand when he was clearly not wanted in either Ataru's or Lum's lives — could find what laid inside.
Opening the drawer, he grinned on seeing the two small boxes of packets within. Lucky thing I visited the Nekohanten a week ago to get packets of Shuiängshëngérnìquán powder to go along with the other stuff, he mused to himself.
<<Not just for us, my brother,>> Hiromi mused from inside Ataru's head.
Hai, true.
With that, Ataru pulled out one packet of Instant Drowned Twins Spring water to go along with one packet of Instant Drowned Girl Spring water. Once they were out, he closed and locked the drawer, then headed over to the dresser on the other side of the room. Opening it, he then smiled as he began to pull out some clothes. Two neat piles of them were made on top of the dresser: bras, panties, thigh-high stockings, G-strings, leather miniskirts, ruffled blouses, earrings, bracelets and makeup to finish it off. With that, he smirked as he took the packets of instant Jusenkyô powder and headed for the bathroom. "Tô-chan! Kâ-chan! Using the bathroom right now!"
"Hai!" his parents called back from the living room.
He headed into the bathroom. The Moroboshi home had modern conveniences as well as a combination bathtub and shower in the Western style. That made things a lot easier; a bathtub was a lot simpler to clean when compared to a furo, especially when you had a shower head on a rubber hose that could be moved around the body without shifting oneself around and risking slipping on a wet surface. With that, he got the shower going nice and hot before he stripped down. After all, not more than a half-hour before, he had been in deep carnal congress with ten exceptionally beautiful yet very emotionally isolated and desperate-almost-to-the-point-of-insanity young women who saw in him the final answer to the one dream that had driven them for eighteen centuries and who knew HOW many reincarnations from the time the soul now sharing his body was the Emperor Líng of Han and they were the Shí Chángshì, the Ten Attendants who were the true rulers of China in the Emperor's name. And were all killed because of it.
It was unfair to Lum to come to her stinking of other women.
Once the shower was done, he stepped out and drained the bathtub. Getting the cleaning supplies out of a nearby closet, he went to work in cleaning the bathtub down with a soft cleanser and lukewarm water. Once that was done and the bathtub dried by a towel, he then plugged up the drain and began filling the tub with cold water. Once it was filled to about twenty centimetres, he stopped the water. He then reached for the packet of instant Niángnìquán powder and dumped it inside the tub. A quick stir with a wooden spoon from the kitchen later, he then reached for the Shuiängshëngérnìquán water and dumped that in. Another stir with the spoon, and then he wiped down the spoon with another towel before placing it in the sink for washing later.
"Okay!"
With that, he leapt into the tub and immersed himself.
"AAAAAH! THAT'S COLD!"
"IYEEEE! IT'S FREEZING!"
Both voices were female, of course.
Hearing that, Kinshô began to moan as tears spilled down her cheeks. "My babies!" she moaned out as she took up a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. "My daughters!"
Muchi gazed fondly at her over his paper…
"You remember how to do it?"
"Of course I do, Onê-san. Remain still."
Tariko Moroboshi — Ataru had chosen the name for his female persona using the kanji 他里子 (child from the other village) — smiled as she crouched down to allow Hiromi — her proper name for now was "Hiromi Koro" until such time as she could be formally adopted into the Moroboshi family — could get at her back. The only difference now between the Moroboshi sisters was that Hiromi had the magatama on her ear; Tariko's left ear was bare.
All courtesy of Jusenkyô.
The former's hands glowed lightly as she forced ki into the latter's body at a certain point that had been pre-prepared there by a certain friend from Nerima. "There, it is done," Hiromi affirmed before turning herself around. "Please?"
"Hai, hai," Tariko said as she moved to force a little of her own ki into the same place on her sister's back. "Lucky thing Ranma was more than willing to help us when I told her the truth about my relationship with Lum and what I wanted to do for her."
"Did she laugh?"
"Eh?"
"Ranma-san? Did she laugh when she learned the truth of Lum-san?"
A shake of the head. "She found it ironic, but when I told him what Lum had confessed to me, she told me she was envious of the fact that my 'fiancée' was being truthful to me while her 'fiancées' were just using her so they could have fun with each other." A snort. "Well, those three dorks are gonna get what they deserve when Ranma moves out and heads to Kimitsu to be with Tsueko-chan." Her face then turned neutral as she added, "Not to mention what's gonna happen with her parents."
"Indeed," Hiromi said as both then moved to clean up the mess they had made. "Onê-san, there might be a bit of a problem."
"What's that?"
"I sense that Chôjô and the others do not approve of Ranma-san's relationship."
Tariko took that in, and then she nodded. "Well, that's what we're here for, Hiromi. We're gonna make sure that Ranma and Tsueko-chan make it all the way."
A nod. "Indeed."
Sometime later, both women were in Ataru's bedroom, finishing up with dressing and applying makeup to accentuate the looks on their faces. As with Ranma and his encounter with the Spring of Drowned Girl, when Ataru faced the magic of Jusenkyô to transform him into Tariko, he found himself turned into a very beautiful, well-formed girl, somewhat taller than Ranma in girl form, with a very attractive yet tomboyish face, well-formed eyes and lips that were almost perfect save for them being a little more narrower than what is normal for a girl her age. Her hair had changed colour like it did in Ranma, from brown to a deep strawberry blonde, almost a neon orange shade, which changed to a darker red in the shadows. It was still in the shaggy style that Ataru wore his hair, but since no one in Tomobiki had ever met with anyone touched by the cursed springs of the Valley of Sorrows, the chances of people connecting Tariko with Ataru — much less Hiromi with Ataru — were next to zero.
Which was good.
Lum's future happiness — especially with her living in Tomobiki for the foreseeable future — depended on that disassociation.
Once the makeup was done, Tariko reached into the bottom drawer to pull out a pair of purses, handing one over to Hiromi. "Ready to go have some fun?"
Hiromi blinked, and then her cheeks reddened. "Onê-san…!"
"What?"
The blush deepened. "This is the first time…with L-l-Lum-san…"
A giggle. "In your own body, right?"
A nod. "H-hai!"
Tariko winked as she pulled her sister close. "Just remember what I've been doing with Lum when we spend time alone with each other while I was Tariko," she advised. "Besides, we'll hit her from both sides and totally have her at our mercy."
"Will she surrender?" Hiromi wondered.
"Hey, with how sexy we are?" Tariko said as she struck a pose, and then she headed to her work desk to open the locked drawer. "Trust me, she'll be silly-putty in our hands within about ten minutes." She pulled out an emerald locket set in a ring of ruby on a gold chain before putting it around her neck. "Shall we go?"
Hiromi nodded. "Hai!"
They moved to embrace as Tariko tapped the locket. "Lum's ship!"
In a flash, they vanished as they teleported kilometres into the sky to find…
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:26)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.